Pathologists go for viral

Those conventionally conservative types from the Royal College of Pathologists of Australia (RCPA) have just found social media religion. And they need to.

With about $2 billion in Commonwealth government funding needing to be firmed up, pathologists have funded a rather risky social media campaign to raise awareness among the masses that they’re truly important.

The RCPA’s conundrum is that it has no money to pay for a media advertising campaign, so it’s banking on a quirky series of 60-second films seeded across its 2300-member network. From there they hope the “Monty Pythonesque" films with titles such as Blowopsy and Emutopsy will spread like a raging virus.

The idea, which was hatched by The Hallway, is to woo punters first and inform later – an approach many companies should embrace to get consumer attention in a fast-moving and cluttered media sector.

“We knew that to engage an audience around pathology we had to do more than simply inform," says The Hallway’s creative partner Simon Lee.

“We had to entertain."

The challenge for the RCPA now is to get traction. Many have tried the “viral" video route in a bid to avoid paid advertising, but creating a viewing hit is still a random scenario for most.

“Pathology largely takes place behind the scenes so it’s still relatively unknown and its importance is not widely understood by the public," Mr Lee says. “This is a real concern as there is a serious message behind our campaign."